1992 Bill Elliott Budweiser Thunderbird

[Rob Spires]

For the 1992 season, NASCAR champion Bill Elliott joined the legendary Junior Johnson race team and found immediate success. After crashing out of the lead in the season-opening Daytona 500, Elliott went on to win the next four races on the schedule. Despite leading the points standings throughout most of the season, Elliott ultimately lost the championship to underdog Alan Kulwicki in the final race of the season. A race, ironically enough, Elliott won. Kulwicki, however, earned enough bonus points by leading laps to clinch the title.



This model is built box stock from a Monogram kit paired with an excellent set of Powerslide decals. Paint is Tamiya TS-49 bright red. This build doesn’t replicate any specific race, though I did add extra brake duct decals and omit the passengers side window as the car would have appeared when Elliott found his early season success on shorter tracks.



This kit’s lineage dates back to Monogram’s initial run of NASCAR kits in the early 80s. Unfortunately the Banjo Matthews chassis in the Ford kits is not as good as the Laughlin that appeared in the GM kits. The wheelbase is different left to right on these kits and cannot be corrected without major surgery, so I left it as is. It is only slightly visible on the right side as the wheels are not quite centered in the wheel wells. The body, however, is among the most accurate Monogram ever tooled. I guess you have to take the good with the bad...

Thanks for looking!

[robhart]

Very nice! Didn't Davey Allison have the points lead going in to the last race?

[afx]

Great looking build Rob.

[dustymojave]

That was an awesome race. I don't often watch Winston Cup races, but I watched that one live.

At the start of the race, the season could have gone to any one of 3 drivers, all driving Fords. The last race of the season went down to the last lap when all 3 cars were running together and had been swapping the lead. They finished 1-2-3 in the race and those 3 were the top 3 in the season standings too. What a rare event in motorsports. Alan celebrated his win with a victory lap going the wrong way around the track. The "Polish Victory Lap". Within a year, 2 of the 3, Alan and Davey Allison were both tragically dead.

[Rob Spires]

Thank you all for the compliments.

The 1992 Hooters 500 is pretty widely considered to be the greatest NASCAR race ever. In addition to the three main contenders, another three drivers mathematically had a chance at the winning the championship. Six drivers with a chance at the championship was pretty unheard of in a 30 race season. To top that all of, it was Richard Petty’s last race and Jeff Gordon’s first (though we didn’t realize the significance of that fact at the time).

Richard’s summary is pretty much spot on, except Davey Allison was actually caught up in a crash in the middle of the race. Then it was left to Kulwicki and Elliott to battle it out for the championship. In the days before electronic scoring, it’s incredible that Kulwicki’s team was able to calculate exactly how many laps he needed to lead to clinch the bonus points that came will leading the most laps. If anyone is interested, here is a great 45 min. documentary about this extraordinary race: youtu.be/ItL9o6RWCxw

On a personal note, the race was on my 9th birthday. Despite being relatively young, I have vivid memories of the race and championship battle (I was a big Davey Allison fan). While I was devastated with the outcome at the time, it has turned into a good memory to share my birthday with such an epic race.

[Joel_W]

Rob,

I'm some what late to the party, but when I see an exceptional build, just have to congratulate the builder on one fine job. You did Wild Bill's Bud ride justice for sure.

Joel

[Rob Spires]

Thank you Joel. It’s never too late! Haha